Sunday, May 15, 2011

Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets.He died on this day, 1990, age 53,of streptococcus pneumonia, a bacterial infection.

I’d change only one word: pretending.

What I think Jim meant by “pretending” comes from Big Bird and Bert and Kermit and the Cookie Monster and Miss Piggy and the rest of the Muppets. All those “pretend” characters. What I hear is Jim saying, “Don’t get stuck in yourself. There are always other dimensions of Yourself you can blossom into.”

The older I get, and the more I think and ponder, the more I know what amazing creatures we human beings are. How amazing the human brain is. How wondrous Life is! But, one of the great realities of Life is (my apologies if anyone is sensitive) Shit Happens. Just like Bliss Happens. If I were a teacher of young people, one of the primary things I would teach them is, “Write your own ending.”

Getting to the point where you have the freedom and the guts and the wisdom to write your own ending is, of course, one of the core challenges of Life. Shit is always going to happen. Teachers of all sorts, including preachers, should focus on equipping people with shoveling it.

I would tell kids: Believe in yourself. Think. Be one of those people about whom my father used to say, “If he fell into a barrel of shit he’d come out wearing a new suit.”

Don’t choose to be a victim. “Keep pretending” really means “You have the power to write your own Story, and rewrite it as many times as you need to.”